Three Poems by Kristin Garth

A name he calls you, “all you’re good for,” takes
it half a dozen times then settles for
the rest. Your blacked-out, beaten boyfriend wakes
and waits. His punch, preschool purview, he bore
for years before he met you. Old enough
to exit long ago but doesn’t fight
him even, now, for you — the one that’s tough
yet tiny, tangled flame of hair, eyes light
up with hormones at work for two. A child
who may be made of monster, you can’t say.
A mouth so potent, words as sharp as wild,
soon to sway: “This asshole dies today.”
Two lips abused, insulted, never heard,
The mouth that kills a bully with a word.

Insanitea

He tells it to her over tea — oolong,
deep jade, in peony, bone porcelain,
teacup as wide as deep. His tone sing-song —
he lets it steep, his whispered plan of pain.

Kristin Garth is a poet from Pensacola and a sonnet stalker. Her sonnets have stalked the pages of Occulum, Ghost City Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Murmur Journal, Fourth & Sycamore, Rise Up Review, Drunk Monkeys, and many other publications. Her poetry dollhouse chapbook Pink Plastic House will be published by Maverick Duck Press in early 2018. Follow her on Twitter: @lolaandjolie.